You passed through this saloon and entered the peristyle; and here (as I have said before was usually the case with the smaller houses of Pompeii) the mansion ended. From each of the seven columns that adorned this court hung festoons of garlands; the centre, supplying the place of a garden, bloomed with the rarest flowers, placed in vases of white marble, that were supported on pedestals. At the left end of this small garden was a diminutive fane, resembling one of those small chapels placed at the side of roads in Catholic countries, and dedicated to the Penates; before it stood a bronze tripod; to the left of the colonnade were two small cubiculi or bed rooms; to the right was the triclinium, in which the guests were now assembled. This room is usually termed by the antiquaries of Naples, "the chamber of Leda;" and in the beautiful work of Sir William Gell, the reader will find an engraving from that most delicate and graceful painting of Leda presenting her new-born to her husband, from which the room derives its name. This beautiful apartment opened upon the fragrant garden. Round the table of citrean[5] wood, highly polished and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii than the semi-circular seat that had grown lately into fashion at Rome; and on these couches of bronze, studded with richer metals, were laid thick quiltings covered with elaborate broidery, and yielding luxuriously to the pressure. [Footnote 5: The most valued wood; not the modern citron tree. Some, among whom is my learned friend Mr. W. S. Landor, conjecture it, with much plausibility, to have been mahogany.] "Well, I must own," said the ædile Pansa, "that your house, though scarcely larger than a case for one's fibulæ, is a gem of its kind. How beautifully painted is that parting of Achilles and Briseis!--what a style!--what heads!--what a--hem!" "Praise from Pansa is indeed valuable on such subjects," said Clodius, gravely. "Why, the paintings on _his_ walls--ah! there is, indeed, the hand of a Zeuxis!" "You flatter me, my Clodius; indeed you do," quoth the ædile, who was celebrated through Pompeii for having the worst paintings in the world; for he was patriotic, and patronised none but Pompeians,--"you flatter me: but there is something pretty--Ædepol, yes--in the colors, to say nothing of the design;--and then for the kitchen, my friends--ah! that was all my fancy." "What is the design?" said Glaucus. "I have not yet seen your kitchen, though I have often witnessed the excellence of its cheer." "A cook, my Athenian--a cook sacrificing the trophies of his skill on the altar of Vesta, with a beautiful muræna (taken from the life) on a spit at a distance: there is some invention there!"